Latest Mideast strikes between U.S. and Iran draw Saudi Arabia into conflict

The U.S. and Saudi Arabia struck Iran-backed militias in Iraq after they launched attacks.

Transcript

JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:

After a five-day pause in attacks between the U.S. and Iran, Iran has fired at U.S. targets in Jordan. The U.S. military called it a surprise attack. President Trump said the U.S. would hit back hard. This while the U.S. and Saudi Arabia have hit Iranian-backed security forces that are on the Iraqi government payroll. NPR's Jane Arraf is following events and joins us now from Jordan. Hi there.

JANE ARRAF, BYLINE: Hi.

SUMMERS: Jane, let's start there with Jordan, where you are. Tell us what happened there today.

ARRAF: Well, the U.S. and Iran paused those attacks to give diplomacy a chance, meaning messages were being exchanged through mediators. But early Wednesday, which is Tuesday evening U.S. time, Iran fired ballistic missiles at U.S. military installations on Jordanian bases. One of them, Iran said, was a military command and control center. So CENTCOM, the U.S. military, said this was a surprise attack. And President Trump told Fox News, in words we, frankly, cannot repeat on air, that the U.S. would give Iran a beating. So there is a lot of waiting here for another escalation in this conflict.

SUMMERS: And at the same time here, the U.S. and Saudi Arabia launched attacks on Iraq. Saudi Arabia does not normally get directly involved. And it also seems surprising given that the Iraqi prime minister was just in Washington about two weeks ago. What has been going on there?

ARRAF: Yeah. Well, first, I think we have to understand who the Iraqi prime minister is and isn't. Ali al-Zaidi is a political outsider, appointed prime minister just two months ago. And like President Trump, he's a businessman. He's not necessarily someone militia leaders are going to pay attention to. Now, Saudi Arabia blames the Iranian-backed militias in Iraq for attacks on their oil infrastructure, and this was retaliation. That took the form of a wave of airstrikes in at least seven different places that killed what the militias said were at least 20 fighters.

It's important to understand some background here. So some of these militias are officially part of Iraqi security forces. And that is a dynamic that goes back to after the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003. And there was a security vacuum that eventually resulted in Iran and these Iran-backed groups becoming an integral part of Iraqi security and Iraqi politics. So fast-forward till now, and the U.S. has pressed successive Iraqi governments to rein in these militias affiliated with Iran. But it is hugely difficult, even if they wanted to.

SUMMERS: So, Jane, tell us then, what is happening in Iraq now?

ARRAF: Well, Prime Minister Zaidi, Ali al-Zaidi, is in an almost impossible position because he can't completely distance himself from Iran because there are so many Iraqi factions and political parties that are allied with them. He says he doesn't want Iraq to be used as a launching pad, but he can't really do much about it. And as might be expected, anger against the U.S. is growing.

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UNIDENTIFIED GROUP: (Chanting in non-English language).

ARRAF: There were funerals today for some of those killed, fighters and supporters with flags chanted death to America, death to traitors. Iran's semiofficial media said the dead included four Iranian Revolutionary Guard members. And Iraqi officials have condemned the attacks as an infringement on sovereignty.

SUMMERS: And I know it's hard to predict, but, Jane, what's likely to happen next?

ARRAF: Well, Fox News quotes Trump as saying he coordinated the attacks on the Shia militias with the Iraqi government, which is extremely unlikely, since it would be political suicide and probably a threat to the prime minister's life had that been the case. But we are already seeing repercussions. The Iraqi prime minister has apparently canceled a planned trip to Saudi Arabia. And the Islamic resistance in Iraq, a compilation of these Iranian-backed militias, says it has set a deadline of next Thursday for the Iraqi government to respond to the U.S.-Saudi aggression, as it calls it.

SUMMERS: NPR's Jane Arraf in Jordan. Jane, thank you.

ARRAF: Thank you.

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